2. Social Life
Characterised by norms
Normative social similarities and differences between people
Examine: how people construct norms, how they conform to or are
regulated by those norms, and how those norms change.
3. Deep-seated, private and enduring change in behaviour and
attitudes due to group pressure.
Conformity
4. Social Influence via Conformity
Social influence can operate through conformity to social or group
norms.
ORIGIN:
Premise: people need reassurance!
Sherif (1936) argued that people use the behaviour of others to
establish the range of possible behaviour: frame of
reference.
Average positions > correct than fringe positions = people tend
to adopt them.
Testing idea AUTOKINESIS!
5. SherifsAutokinesis experiment
Autokinesis is an optical illusion where a fixed pinpoint of light
in a completely dark room appears to move: movement is actually
caused by eye movement in the absence of a physical frame of
reference.
Experiment: people asked to estimate how much the light moves over
a series of 100 trials.
Experiment A: participants started alone before taking turns to
call out their estimates in groups of two or three.
Experiment B: participants started in groups before making their
own estimates alone.
6. Results:
7. Asch (1952)
Argued that if the object of judgment was entirely unambiguous,
then people would remain independent of group influence.
Experiment: Participants thought they were performing a visual
discrimination task and took turns in a fixed order to call out
publicly which of three comparison lines was the same length as a
standard line.
In reality, only one person was the true participants and answered
second last. Others were confederates instructed to give erroneous
responses.
8. Results
Average conformity rate was 33%.
All reported uncertainty and self-doubt as a result of the
disagreement between themselves and the group.
Evolved into self-consciousness, fear of disapproval and feelings
of anxiety and even loneliness.
Most knew they saw things differently from the group, but felt
their perception may have been inaccurate and the group to be
correct.
Others did not believe the group was correct, but did not want to
stand out.
Small minority saw the lines as the group claimed.
Independents were: entirely confident or emotionally affected but
guided by a belief in individualism or in doing the task as
directed.
9. Who conforms?
10. Characteristics
Low self-esteem
High need for social support or approval
Need for self-control
Low IQ
High anxiety
Feelings of self-blame and insecurity in the group
Feelings of inferiority
11. Cultural Differences
12. Smith, Bond and Kagitcibasi (2006)
Surveyed conformity studies that used Aschs paradigm/variant.
Level of conformity ranged from 14% among Belgian students (Doms,
1983) to a high of 58% among Indian teachers in Fiji (Chandra,
1973).
Conformity was lower among participants from individualist cultures
in North America and north-western Europe (25.3%) than collectivist
cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America (37.1%)
13. Situational factors in conformity
14. Two major factors
Group size
Group unanimity
15. Group size - Asch (1952)
Found that as the unanimous group increased from one person to two,
three, four, eight, ten and fifteen, the conformity rate increased
and then decreased: 3, 13, 33, 35, 32, 31 per cent.
Findings suggest conformity reaches its full strength with a 3-5
person majority and additional members have little effect.
16. Unanimity
Conformity is greatly reduced if the majority is not
unanimous.
Asch found that a correct supporter reduced conformity from 33 to
5.5 per cent.
Any lack of unanimity seems to be effective.
Asch found that a non-conformist who was even more wildly incorrect
than the majority was equally effective.
17. Processes of conformity
18. Three main processes
Informational influence
Normative influence
Referent informational influence
19. Informational influence
An influence to accept information from another as evidence about
reality.
Comes into play when people are uncertain, either because the
stimuli is ambiguous or because there is social disagreement.
Probably partially responsible for the autokinesic study because
reality was ambiguous.
20. Normative influence
An influence to conform with the positive expectation of others to
gain social approval or to avoid social disapproval.
Comes into play when the group is perceived to have the power and
ability to mediate rewards and punishment based on our
behaviour
An important precondition is that one believes one is under
surveillance by the group.
Creates surface compliance in public settings rather than true
enduring cognitive change.
Principal cause of conformity in the Asch experiment.
21. Referent Informational Influence
Pressure to conform with a group norm that defines oneself as a
group member.
Comes from social identity theory.
People conform because they are group members, not to validate
physical reality or to avoid social disapproval.
People do not conform to other people but to a NORM: other people
act as a source of information about the appropriate ingroup
norm.
Because the norm is an internalised representation, people can
conform to it in the absence of surveillance.
22. Moscovici (1976, 1985)
Believed that there are three social influence modalities that
define how people respond to social conflict:
Conformity e.g. Asch
Normalisation compromise leading to convergence. E.g.
Autokinesis
Innovation a minority creates conflict in order to influence the
majority
23. MINORITY INFLUENCE AND SOCIAL CHANGE
24. Minority Influence
Often such influence is based (in the case of individuals) on
leadership or (in the case of subgroups) legitimate power.
Without minority influence, social change would be very difficult
to explain. E.g. Anti-war rallies, suffragettes, Greenpeace.
Important questions here are whether minorities and majorities gain
influence via different social practices and whether the underlying
psychology is different.
25. Criticism: Conformity bias
Tendency for social psychology to treat group influences as a one
way process in which individuals or minorities always conform to
majorities.
Moscovici and Faucheux (1972) suggested that Aschs studies had
actually been studies of minority influence, not majority
influence.
In reality, Aschs lone participant was a member of a large majority
confronted by a small minority, therefore, participants were
influenced by a minority, and those who remained independent can be
considered to be the conformists!
26. Behavioural style and the genetic model
Moscovici (1976) called it a genetic model because it focused on
how social conflict can generate (are genetic of) social
change.
To create change, active minorities go out of their way to create
conflict.
People are motivated to avoid or resolve conflict.
Common resolution: dismiss or discredit the minority.
Amount of influence minority has depends on behavioural
style.
27. Behavioural style factors
Consistency among the minority in their behaviour across time and
context. MOST IMPORTANT BEHAVIOURAL STYLE!
Show investment in its position by making sacrifices
Show autonomy by acting out of principle rather than from ulterior
motives.
Mugny(1982) extended the behavioural styles and argued that
minorities are usually in powerless positions and must negotiate
their influence with the majority.
Argued that a rigid minority risks being rejected as dogmatic but
if they are too flexible, they risk being rejected as
inconsistent.
Fine line but degree of flexibility is more effective than
rigidity.
28. Conversion theory
Dominant explanation of minority influence.
More cognitive focused of how a member of the majority process the
minoritys message.
Idea:
Majority influence public compliance accepted views with little
cognitive processing
Minority influence private change validation process degree of
private internal attitude change = conversion effect.
29. Social identity and self-categorisation
From this perspective, minorities should be extremely ineffective
sources of influence.
According to David and Turner (2001), the key to effective minority
influence is for the minority to somehow make the majority shift
its level of social comparison to a genuine shared group.
Research confirms that minorities do exert more influence if they
are perceived by the majority as an ingroup.
30. Social Impact theory
Social influence depends upon numbers, strength and immediacy
(impact).
Latane and Wolf (1981) argued that > sources = > influence
BUT as the cumulative source >, the impact of each additional
source
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